Doping - Bike Pure

A couple weeks ago I found a lost treasure - my 2007 Giro DVD set. I hadn't seen extensive coverage of the Giro, and the whole atmosphere seems a bit more chaotic, a bit less controlled, and a lot more random than the much more austere, dignified, and somewhat predictable Tour.

So with eager legs I got on the trainer and popped in the three different DVDs in the set.

I forgot about all the controversy surrounding that particular race, but it came back to me pretty quickly. Lack of male hormones, the Oil for Drugs thing, blah blah blah.

On the other hand, I discovered something today.

I must have been dozing at the keyboard in the last few months... err year... because I just discovered a cool new site. Pezcycling, who I haven't been visiting as often as I used to, had an interesting article on Joe Papp. He's a guy that raced around here, used to have an online diary, doped like crazy for a while, almost died due to a hematoma caused by blood thinners, got tagged in a test, and confessed to doping. The article was a "post-tag" interview, where they asked him some questions about doping and stuff.

That article linked to Bike Pure.

And Bike Pure, well, that was a new one for me.

In the last year or so, with the various dope positives (apparently there were 60?), the fall of ACE, and all sorts of depressing doping news... I kinda sorta lost interest in things. Somehow, it seems, I either missed or wrote off this new "Bike Pure" announcement.

Anyway, I haven't fully explored it but it seems pretty interesting.

First order of business - donate enough money that they can send me a cool bracelet, sticker, and headset spacer without losing money on the deal.

Okay, admit it. You think that's kinda cool too.

I'm tired so I'll stop here, but it gets old watching DVDs of bike races and thinking, "Okay, he got tagged... he did too. So did he. Oh, man, that guy is riding like an idiot, and, yeah, he got tagged too."

A lot of those guys don't ride really smart. It makes me wonder what came first - not riding smart because they don't have the wherewithal, or not riding smart because they think they're so superior because they're doped to the gills.

Whatever, I feel sorry for Phil and Paul. How can you marvel at a new star racer when you think, "Man, the last time I talked about some new star, he got tagged a year or two later." So what do you say?

I don't know either.

The 2007 Giro DVD set, which I so eagerly retrieved from its hiding place, seems to have lost some of its luster.

But, you know, it's still cool watching all the attacks and stuff at the end of the flat stages. That's where, regardless of doping and dopers, it's still a lot of instinct and planning and tactics and adaptation.

And, ultimately, because of that, the racing still thrills.